name of Lord thy God in vain: for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh is name in vain. -Swear not at all, neither by heaven, nor by the earth but let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for what fover is more than thefe, cometh of evil."

"Now I overtake a burial." Perhaps it is an only child, an useful neighbour, a kind hufband, or be loved wife: but nothing now avails, but Jefus formed in his heart, and applied to him as his eternal robe.Lord, in the view of my approaching exit, I take hold of thee, and thy everlasting covenant, as all my falvation, and all my defire: to thee I commit my fpirit: according to thy promife, fatisfy me with life, and cause mine eyes to fee thy falvation. I leave my fatherless children on thee; and let my wir dow trult in thee. Much of me is dead already: my best friends are mostly gone; gone, I fear, to Jefus' tribunal, to witness against my neglecting to profit, or to be profited by them: parents, brothers, and fifters, are entered into a dread eternity: death hath carried off my pleasant children, as hoftages and pledges, that I muft quickly follow: my remaining feed grow up to thrust me out of my prefent room. Long hath God been loofing my roots on earth, that he may the more easily pluck me up at last. Perhaps, in my remaining half hand-breath of time, he will ftrip me of every relation; of every outward comfort: the Lord hath given; and if the Lord take away, bleffed be the name of the Lord: happy they whofe friends are not loft in death, but gone before.

"SURPRISING! thefe buriers attend the corpfe "with no more apparent fenfe of future things, than "if they interred a dog; indecent laughter, talking

"of

" of common news, or even making of merchandise, "employs them." Have the people in this country: no immortal fouls? Is there no heaven, no hell, no. eternity before them! Shall the ftupid flock be for a while ftartled, when the butcher carries off one of their number? and are there MEN, whose conicience takes no alarm, when death carries off their companion into an awful, an endlefs ftate?-Ah! what precious moments, what inftructive hints, what rousing alarms, these thoughtless finners contemn! God forbid that tormenting flames fhould first teach them. to think.

"Lo, here is the burying place." Multitudes, multitudes are in this valley of decifion: fmall and great are here; rich and poor meet together; enemies mutually embrace: "the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at reft." "Let me turn aside and "view this open grave," To have one eye on death, another full fixed on heaven, becomes a mortal and immortal man. -Is fuch my future manfion is fuch duft all that I, and all that the proud, shall be ? must fuch clods and worms be my fweet companions? detested be my pride that ends so vile. O that I were wife; that I understood this; that I could confider my last end. But is not the grave the place where: Jefus lay then welcome, thrice welcome grave to› me. With defire have I defired to feel the place where the Lord lay; that I may cat the great pallover with him in the temple above.-Chrift is mine ;; and therefore, O death, where is thy fting? O grave, where is thy victory, ?”

"Now the corpfe is interred; and many of the "attendants are gone to drink the dirge." Ah! while perhaps their friend howls and roars amidst untender fire, fhall they carouse over their bottle?

Hath

Hath Satan devifed thefe dirges to quench every fpark of concern which the death of friends can kindle in our breast?

"YONDER ftands a magnificent houfe: at vaft $6 expence the late owner reared it; and when it "was just finished, he retired to his grave." Deceitful earth, is this thy ufage of thy noble friends, to wind up their expectations to the higheft; and then fuddenly caft them down into deftruction? blot me then out of their number. If riches, honours, or pleasures increafe; let me not fet mine heart upon them: let my foul never look upon the wine of earthly enjoyments "when it it red, when it giveth its colours in the cup; at the laft it will bite like a ferpent, and fting like an adder." Whenever I behold or enjoy any thing noble, magnificent, or pompous let me seriously reflect how little it is to fill the idea, and fatisfy the ambition of an immortal foul.

"HERE is a cottage meanto a proverb: here the "coalliers dwell." Ungrateful earth, is this thy kindness to thy dear fon, who lies and labours in thy bofom ?-who, I fear gives thee his heart, as well as takes thine? he toils to warm others; yet himself has fcarce either robes or roof to refilt the cold?Poor foul! haft thou provided a better lodging for eternity is this wretched hut thy beft heaven; art thou the pleafed heir of a double hell? or is the Lord Jefus thy fure, thy everlafting habitation?Lord, I bless thee for my more commodious dwell ing; and that, when the hut of my frail body fall be diffolved, I have a boufe eternal in the heavens."Yonder bearers of the fofter fex: how finking "their load! yet how cheerful their fong!" How many, laden with iniquity, with the curfe of their

Maker,

Maker, defcend to the bottomless pit amidst thoughtlefs folly and mirth!-But learn, my foul, to rejoice in tribulation, and in every state therewith to be content: rejoice in the Lord; caft all thy burdens upon him, and he fhall fuftain thee. "Yonder is a coal"lier, or chimney-fweeper: a true swatch of unfightlinefs." With grief and shame behold thy felf, my foul, for thou art black; black not as a painted, but as a real dæmon.-Do thou, Jefus, wash me; then fhall I be whiter than the fnow. Make me perfect through thy comcliness put upon me.

"HERE lies a female befotted with drink." lothfome fight! Ah, easy prey for hell! Ah, what degrading! what worse than beaftly vice is drunken. nefs? Are thefe MEN? Can they be CHRISTIANS, who give up themselves to it? What a mercy that my curfed luft does not, juft now fo expofe me!— But, alas, how am I intoxicate with felf-conceit, carnal care, or angry paffion! how often my mind is wrought into a raging ocean, to waft a feather, or to drown a fly!" Here comes a lame man leaping on "crutches." Fallen in Adam, like Jonathan's fon, I am lame on both my feet; can go no where in the Lord's way: but may heaven's King fhew me kindnefs for my Father Jefus' fake: caufe me to dwell in his prefence, and eat bread continually at his table. Bleffed be his name, he hath provided crutches, provided promises, provided Jefus, to be legs to the lame, and eyes to the blind. On him let me lean all the days of my life. A time cometh when "the lame man fhall leap as an heart, and the tongue of the dumb fhall fing

"Now I have rode fome miles with this company: most of them, I guess, are profeffed faints

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"one of them is a minifter. Largely, and with great precision, have they talked concerning com"mon news and temporal affairs; but nothing concerning Jefus and his love; nothing concerning "matters of eternal moment hath dropped from "their lips." Alas! Abiram's curfe hath feized them, the earth hath opened her mouth, and fwallowed them up alive; fwallowed, I fear, their fouls, thoughts, words, and actions: let me flee afar off, left the earth swallow me up alfo. Ah! it is already done partly a dumb, partly a carnal devil, hath entered me: how little can I fay, that is heavenly and spiritual?-Doth not my readiness to mingle in earthly converse, testify, that, like the ferpent, my foul feedeth on duft? Ah, are there no news from heaven! no new mercies from above? no news from the bufy region of our heart! Are the glad tidings of great joy to all people now out of date? or are the ears of this generation too polite to hear any thing that is worthy to be heard?

"How richly feed the flocks and herds within "yonder inclosure:" Thouhgtlefs animals you are fed to the slaughter, and know it not.--What numbers of unthinking mortals are fattened to the flaughter of eternal wo; and, at laft, fhall decay as fat of lambs!-Fret not then my foul, that God refufes me the portion of reprobates.---Scorned and pitied be they who think themselves brutes, who live as if there were not a hereafter.

"HERE is a beautiful well of running water, let "me alight and refresh myself." Rather let me de fcend from the heights of my felf-conceit, and with joy draw water out of the wells of falvation; JEHOVAH, Jefus, the bleffed Spirit, and every promife of the

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